Passage | Rotem Reshef

The installation “Passage” strives to raise awareness of issues related to interactions between humans and nature, such as climate change, natural resource exploitation, and the disrupted cycles of the seasons.

Rotem Reshef is a painter and installation artist who has shown her works in many solo and group exhibitions in Israel and around the world. Her artistic practice focuses on the human and natural ecosystems, the fragility of life, and the opportunity for a second chance.

“Passage” seeks to strengthen our compassion and concern for the surroundings, as a corrective and healing response to environmental destruction. These ideas are planted in the installation as abstract graphic experiences that embody different types of personal, family, and collective memories.

In creating the installation, Reshef used prunings from the botanical gardens and urban landscape of Tel Aviv – branches and leaves that were cut out from the circle of life. This waste turned into “treasure”, and now tells a new story through the “corrective” practice of art, which takes the dead and breathes a new spirit into it. Thus, the artistic garden echoes the nearby physical garden.

The “Passage” also relates to the laboratories, research rooms, and libraries within the Steinhardt Museum, and instills the world of humanities and books into the world of nature and botanic gardens. These facilitate the development of knowledge and tools for managing the ecosystem in which we live, and build the scientific base that will enable us, as a community, to move forward.

The exhibition will be on display free of charge to the public, in Galil Plaza at the entrance to the Museum, from Tuesday 28.6.22

Print coordination, exhibition installation and project navigation: Yosef Gurman
Installation construction: Omri Ben Artzi – Exhibition design and production studio
Photography: Avi Amsalem, Yuval Chai
Photography editing for printing: Avi Amsalem
Printing: Baram City Press
Hebrew language editing: Daphna Lev
English translation and editing: Dr. Carly Golodets
Arabic translation and editing: Salih Ali Sawaed